~~ LIACH POV ~~
Sinveer hasn't spoken to me since the gala.
No smug remarks. No veiled barbs. No stares that last a little too long.
It's been two days of cold professionalism. Mechanical updates. Hollow silence.
He's trying to convince himself the placeholder didn't mean anything.
He's failing.
I see it in his jaw when I brush past his chair.
I feel it in the way his eyes hesitate just before they look away.
And I know he feels it too.
The shift.
The question.
What the hell was that?
But if he won't say it, I won't either.
Because tonight, I have something better to do than play pretend.
~~9:14 PM – EASTSIDE WAREHOUSE DISTRICT~~
The air stinks of smoke and oil. Metal groans in the wind. The whole block feels like a grave waiting to be filled.
My father's message came in an hour ago.
"Make it public. Make it brutal. Let them feel it."
He doesn't say who "them" is.
He doesn't need to.
A low-level dealer working with one of the De Luna suppliers—unapproved, off-books, sloppy. Gabriel wants him gone.
Wants Sinveer rattled.
I plan to deliver.
The target's name is Rico.
He's the kind of man who thinks being violent makes him powerful. The kind who pushes women into corners and laughs at weaker men.
Easy prey.
He's holed up in a converted garage at the end of an abandoned block. His boys are inside playing cards. Loud music. No lookouts.
Amateurs.
I slip through the rear alley and scale the chain-link fence with a fluid climb.
Through the window, I spot him—sweaty, bald, drunk off his own ego. A handgun tucked into his waistband, safety still on.
I wait ten minutes.
Then I knock.
The door opens and I slide in like smoke.
Rico's friend answers first. Big guy. Greasy ponytail. Doesn't even get a word out before my blade goes under his chin and into his brain.
No time to scream.
The second one fumbles for a gun. I throw the scalpel—perfect arc—clean through his eye.
Two down.
Rico stares, half-drunk, not sure if it's a dream.
I walk toward him slow.
Measured.
He tries to pull his gun. I kick the table at him—hard—slamming his wrist against the edge.
He howls.
"Wh-what the fuck—"
I backhand him.
Not out of anger.
Out of principle.
He stumbles back, blood in his mouth.
"Who sent you?!"
I grab his face. Slam it into the wall.
Then I lean in, lips inches from his ear.
"Your death is a message. Congratulations. You've been chosen."
His scream is choked by the garrote wire I loop around his neck.
He claws at it, gasping, flailing.
But I don't tighten it all the way.
Not yet.
I let him slide halfway to unconsciousness.
Then release it.
He gasps for breath.
And I begin again.
It takes ten minutes to kill him.
Not because I have to.
But because I want to.
I paint his blood in patterns. Cut his name into his chest. Leave a rose made from his flesh pinned to the wall with his own knife.
Grotesque.
Poetic.
Cisco style.
Before I leave, I write one word in spray paint across the wall in black:
"Evolve."
Let Sinveer figure out what it means.
Let him feel it.
11:47 PM – DE LUNA SURVEILLANCE VAN
~~Sinveer's POV ~~
"She's a fucking ghost," Marek mutters beside me as we watch the warehouse smoke in the distance.
Three dead.
One mutilated beyond recognition.
No cameras inside.
No witnesses left.
But it's her.
I know it.
She moves like her. The mark—clean, artistic. No cartel does this. No rival family leaves messages. They leave blood.
But this?
This is a signature.
This is a performance.
And I've seen that performance before.
"Do we move in?" Marek asks.
I shake my head.
We're too late.
She's already gone.
Again.
BACK TO LIACH – 2:18 AM – HER APARTMENT
I shower slow.
The blood swirls down the drain in lazy spirals. Steam fogs the mirror, hiding the pieces of me I don't want to see right now.
Because I didn't just enjoy it.
I needed it.
The tension from the gala, the heat from his hand on my waist, the echo of his voice when he called me just a placeholder—it built up inside me like static.
I couldn't let it stay.
So I exhaled it into Rico's throat.
And now, I can finally breathe again.
10:00 AM - DE LUNA HQ
He doesn't say anything.
But he looks at me differently now.
Like he's trying to connect dots that keep slipping out of focus.
Like he wants to believe I'm harmless but can't quite swallow the lie.
I hand him his morning report.
He takes it.
Our fingers brush.
And I wonder—
What would he do if he knew those same fingers sliced a man open twelve hours ago?
Would he arrest me?
Kill me?
Or drag me into his office and fuck me senseless?
I can't tell anymore.
And I don't think he can either.